The Cats Illustrated Basketball Stock Report is updated to reflect the latest trends in Kentucky basketball. In this case, that means it's updated to reflect what went down in Wednesday's game against South Carolina.
| 📉 | Officiating. There's just no consistency. At all. Kentucky can't blame the officiating for the loss because it was bad both ways. But most importantly, the swings in emphasis and the quickness of the whistle from game to game makes for a totally unpredictable watching experience, to say nothing of how difficult that makes it on the players. There were twice as many foul calls on Wednesday night as there was in the UK-Alabama game. It makes the game hard to watch. |
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📉 | Second half play. Kentucky's offense wasn't the problem in the second half. It's just tough to fathom this South Carolina team scoring 56 points, shooting 20/36 from the field, and rebounding half of those misses. Considering UK's defensive efficiency, coupled with South Carolina's offensive struggles, it will go down as one of the more perplexing halves of the season for both teams. |
📈 | Immanuel Quickley. He's still "in the zone". Quickley may be Kentucky's best offensive player. The basket seems to appear very big to him whenever he's shooting. Quickley scored 20 points on 6/9 shooting and was 2/4 from outside the arc. He needs more shots than he's getting because he isn't missing often. Quickley also had the game-tying basket, which should have put the game into overtime. |
📉 | Rebounding. Once again the boards were a problem for Kentucky. The Wildcats were outrebounded 42-41 for the game even after a strong start on the glass. The real problem was allowing 20 offensive rebounds to the Gamecocks. UK has to become better on the glass and part of the problem is a persistent failure to block out. |
📉 | Ashton Hagans. He continues to stuff the stat sheet but anyone paying attention has to notice that he has become a bit sloppy with the ball. Hagans had five turnovers, was 2/10 from the field, and he fouled out. Overall, Kentucky had 15 turnovers. |
📉 | Ball movement. Hagans had seven assists. The entire rest of Kentucky's team: Three assists. Two for Quickley, one for Tyrese Maxey, zero combined for everyone else on the team. |
